The Ombudsman Enterprise and Administrative Justice

The statutory duty of public service ombudsmen (PSO) is to investigate claims of injustice caused by maladministration in the provision of public services. This book examines the modern role of the ombudsman within the overall emerging system of administrative justice and makes recommendations as to how PSO should optimize their potential within the wider administrative justice context. Recent developments are discussed and long standing questions that have yet to be adequately resolved in the ombudsman community are re-evaluated given broader changes in the administrative justice sector. The work balances theory and empirical research conducted in a number of common law countries. Although there has been much debate within the ombudsman community in recent years aimed at developing and improving the practice of ombudsmanry, this work represents a significant advance on current academic understanding of the discipline.

Brian Thompson is Senior Lecturer, Liverpool Law School, University of Liverpool. He has published extensively on Administrative and Constitutional Law. He acts a consultant on Public Law to the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, is a member of the panel of specialist advisers to the House of Commons Public Administration select committee which oversees the work of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. He was an early advocate of viewing together ombudsmen, complaints tribunals and the courts within an administrative justice framework, and was appointed to the Council on Tribunals in April 2007 and to its successor, the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council in November 2007. Richard Kirkham is a Lecturer at Sheffield School of Law, University of Sheffield. edits the Ombudsman section in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. He has written extensively about the changing roles of the PSO in the UK and has been employed as a consultant by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Trevor Buck is Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at De Montfort Law School, De Montfort University. His publishing and research interests are in the area of Social Security Law. He conducted a study on the Ombudsmen and social security under a Nuffield Foundation award and was the founding editor of the Ombudsman section in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law in 1990. He has conducted a number of funded socio-legal studies for the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Nuffield Foundation and the National Audit Office.